Sir – I was most concerned and dismayed to read that the BBC was considering the closure of the Oxford TV news which would result in the loss of an extremely valuable public service to the local community.

It would also mean termination of contracts for two excellent presenters, Geraldine Peers and Jerome Sale together with, of course, various other reporters whose faces have become so familiar to us over the years.

I have to confess that formerly my wife and I used to watch the ITV local news as at that time they presented a much more Oxfordshire orientated service from their Abingdon studios.

When this was axed by Meridian we immediately changed to BBC and found that the so called “sub-opt” giving 15 minutes of really local items before going over to Southampton for the wider south view more than met our requirements.

Now it seems the BBC wants to follow the same path and leave us with one programme covering Banbury to Southampton in which there will be, of necessity, little Oxford news.

Apparently it’s all right for the BBC to spend vast sums of money building huge new facilities in Manchester and further vast sums moving programme making and presenters (who really don’t want to move) up to that area but it’s a different matter when it comes to financing the three sub-opts covering the Channel Islands, Cambridge and Oxford.

Where are the BBC’s priorities? Plush new offices and studios or a vital news service covering three quite different areas within a much larger one — it certainly does make you wonder. I intend to email or write to the BBC Trust which it seems will be having the final say. I urge anyone who feels the same as I do to do likewise and contact the Trust to make your feelings known.

Full information on postal or email addresses can be found on the Trust website. The BBC should be ashamed of itself and it must be made aware of the views of its customers, the licence payers, who are ultimately the source of its income.

E. J. Minte, Woodstock